We had VIP passes given to us for the Jefferson City caravan, which allowed us to have a small room Q&A/autograph session with the players, mc’ed by John Rooney. Needless to say, the organization didn’t bring out the big wheels to head to JC…

Ex-players included Jack Clark (nice wind pants, Jack…not a good look, big guy…could have been a Sopranos extra)…Danny Cox (he has gotten HUGE…but was jovial enough with everybody)…and John Costello (weird guy…kept talking about Auggie Busch and how much he loves beer, at which point I looked over at my 6 year old son, who gave me a thumbs up…which reminds me - note to self…no more beer runs to the fridge during poker night for the little man)

Skip Schumaker…dude came across as a bit of a tool…standoffish and perturbed about something…I did ask him if he’s received any feedback from the organization on the possibility of being cast as a leadoff hitter…his answer was the standard “lot of OFs on the team…just trying to make the club.” (which was an appropriate response)

Brendan Ryan…nice guy…came across as much more intelligent then I was anticipating (don’t ask me why). Someone asked him if he was disappointed the Cardinals made the middle IF free agent signings they did and he actually said yes he was, but communicated the point that he intends to come in and work as hard as possible to make the club. Standard stuff. He also said playing 3B in the majors was the scariest thing he’s done in his life…that cracked me up.

Ron Flores…good sense of humor…ripped on his brother a bit…sees a nice opportunity in StL…

Brian Barton…nice guy…athletic look with the dreads…spoke with him the most…extremely intelligent (as evidenced by the Aerospace Engineering degree from the U)…he was on the end of the table and no one was really talking to him, so I had about 4 minutes with him as my son and nephews worked their way down the table of autographs…I told him that myself and a number of others (plugged Future Redbirds blog to him) where really pleased the Cardinals got him in the Rule 5…made the observation that he got caught in a numbers crunch there in Cleveland…asked him if maybe they thought he wasn’t recovered from his knee injury (which he says he absolutely is and continues to gain power/speed)…then I mentioned it appears there was a need for a RH’ed OF bat with speed on the club, to which he definitely agreed…I then told him he’ll appreciate the way the fans acknowledge effort at the stadium…then shook his hand and said welcome to Cardinal Nation. After the VIP session, I went into the main room that had 400 people in it and listened to the player introductions and what they had to say. The funny part of this story is Barton gets up there…introduces himself as coming from Cleveland…indicates he got caught in a numbers crunch there…thought they felt he maybe wasn’t 100% recovered from the knee injury …said the Cards have an opportunity for a speedy RH’ed OF…said he looks forward to playing in front of the fans who appreciate effort on the field and looks forward to being a member of Cardinal Nation. I was ROLLING…I wrote that dudes speech for him. Anyway, nice guy…hopefully he pans out for us and contributes.

Overall, the ceremony didn’t lend too much in the way of “new information”. A lot of discussion was spent on injury updates for Carp, Mulder and Kinney. Youngsters mentioned included Rasmus, of course, but also Anderson, Perez and Joe Mather as being part of the young talent the organization has coming up through the ranks that could see time w/ the big club this year (Anderson?). Overall, good time…and we now have Ron Flores’ autograph on a baseball…would’ve lost money on that one a month ago.